Anatomy of a Journey
December 14, 2008 - January 4, 2009
This report can't do justice to Aunt Barbara, Jerry's party, family Christmas, or the celebrations with my Minnesota family, and I can hardly report on three weeks of activities. I will focus on my travels - train, bus, plane, and train - but this in no way means that I appreciate Amtrak more than family and friends!
December 14, 3:00 pm: Eugene
After a day of packing, Kyle takes me to the Amtrak station in Eugene, where #11 (Coast Starlight) is running on schedule. We drive around looking for Eugene's best bar, the Bier Stein, and failing to find it, we settle on a rushed meal at the Laughing Planet. The train departs perhaps 10 minutes late at 5:20 pm, and we set off into the Cascades in darkness. The train is about 1/4 full, so there is plenty of room to spread out and lay down.
December 14, 7:00 pm: Chemult, OR
Willamette Pass is a series of curves and tunnels, and I only get glimpses of snow-covered trees in the darkness. We are making good time despite ongoing snowfall, arriving in Chemult just behind schedule. As we glide through the high country near Klamath Falls, I drift to sleep for a short time.
December 15, 2:00 am: Dunsmuir, CA
I wake to find our train stopped in Dunsmuir, CA - near Mt. Shasta. I could lay down again, but the scenery is too interesting. We slowly wind through a river valley, passing beneath I-5 on multiple high bridges and ducking in and out of short tunnels. The scanner is mostly quiet except for the talking defect detectors that broadcast in a computer voice when we pass. "UP Detector. Milepost three-zero-eight-point-seven. No defects. Five-two axles. Train speed seven-nine m-p-h. Temperature two-seven degrees. Out." Occasionally a detector gets the axle count wrong. When we pass a detector that says "four-four axles," I check to ensure that my car (the last car on the 11-car train) is still attached. Snow is piling up fast, and switches are starting to freeze. One freight that takes a siding for us to pass is stuck there for a few hours when the dispatcher can't throw the switch. We cross a reservoir on a long high bridge, then descend into Redding on a long bridge that slowly drops to ground level, making it feel as if I am in a plane descending to a runway. I sleep a bit more through the Central Valley, as the scenery is far less interesting.
December 15, 6:30 am: Sacramento
We arrive in Sacramento an hour ahead of schedule, so I have a long wait. I call Jean and explore the station platform. After a stop at the university in Davis, we cruise down some high-speed track to San Francisco.
December 15, 8:30 am: San Francisco
San Francisco! (Oakland actually) There are no rail bridges across the bay, but we follow the eastern shore all the way, through the "butt end" of San Francisco (industry, run-down neighborhoods, and the mighty mountain of a landfill). I snap a few shots of the Golden Gate Bridge across the bay.
December 15, 11:00 am: Salinas
We left the Union Pacific's main north-south freight line at Sacramento. Now we are on the Coast Subdivision, a little used route, and we pass only one freight train all the way to Los Angeles. We follow several inland valleys before we climb over a pass and down to San Luis Obispo. It is planting season, and all the land is bare black mud. Before Salinas we follow along a large lake with a very high water level, and we have to slow down where the water comes right up to the rails.
The track here is mostly ABS (automatic block signaling), instead of the modern CTC (centralized traffic control). With ABS, the signals ensure that trains don't collide, but the dispatcher can't control the signals or throw the switches. So we have to obtain track warrants over the radio for each section of track. With no freights, the only other track warrants are issued to track inspectors, and we cruise right along. The only slowdown is right before Salinas, where one of the ABS signals is stuck red, and the dispatcher has to give us permission to pass a red signal.
December 15, 2:00 pm: Pasa Robles
Eighty miles past Salinas, we start to climb, following Highway 101, traveling through a tunnel at the top before slowly winding down to San Luis Obispo on the coast. The mountains here are a beautiful golden brown, but rain makes photography difficult. I am reading The Loop, an engaging novel, but I take a break here to enjoy the scenery and chat with a girl from Eugene who is headed to Mexico for three months to study indigenous agriculture.
San Luis Obispo
December 15, 4:00 pm: Coast Sunset
South of San Luis Obispo, we climbed over a ridge before finally getting a view of the Pacific. That view would continue for the next few hours as we curved along a plateau about 100-200 feet above the water. We passed through Vandenburg AFB, and a former military man sitting near me pointed out the rocket silos and launch platforms from the Cold War era. The sun sank slowly into the ocean, and for a while I was running back and forth across the lounge car taking photos of the sun and the military buildings.
December 15, 6:30 pm, Santa Barbara
Just as I call Barbara to tell her I am on time, the train loses electrical power. The crew soon determines that our second engine just died due to a fuel pump failure, so they switch electrical generation duty to the first engine and we continue. A few minutes later the crew report that they have been "rocked," meaning that somebody threw a rock and cracked their windshield. But that doesn't slow us down either. We have one last hill to climb before LA, and the engineer turns off train electrical power until we reach the top to give our one engine more power. As it turns out we have plenty of power, and we coast into Union Station 15 minutes ahead of schedule.
December 15, 9:15 pm, Los Angeles
Bags in hand, I wait in front of Union Station, and soon Aunt Barbara arrives! After a half-hour trip down a 14-lane freeway, we climb the hill to San Pedro, and I settle in to sleep beneath the skylights and with the pleasant company of Widget the cat.
December 16: Hollywood on Foot
Barbara has to work today, but she gives me her LA transit pass, and I plan to explore Hollywood by bus, train, and foot. With no timetables for the local buses, I walk to the stop, see no bus, and decide to keep walking down to the harbor, where I watch containers being loaded onto ships until the Commuter Express bus shows up. That bus takes me to Long Beach, where I get on the Blue Line (light rail), which takes almost an hour to arrive downtown. I'm not a big fan of trains that stop at stoplights.
Riding the Blue Line
At the 7th street station, the end of the Blue Line, we arrive underground and I walk further underground to hop on the east-west Red Line to Hollywood. The Red Line is a true subway and moves very fast, with only about 1-2 minutes between station stops. It takes no more than 10 minutes to arrive at the Hollywood/Vine stop. I am somewhat disoriented upon leaving the station, and it takes me a few blocks to realize that I am walking east on Hollywood Blvd. rather than west as I intended.
Every LA tourist takes this picture (looking north toward the Hollywood Hills)
My directions established, I turn south for a few blocks to Sunset Boulevard then turn west, hoping to encounter some Hollywood culture. It is a few blocks before it gets interesting, but I stop at a place cutting hair for ten bucks and get a "Hollywood haircut." As I approach Vine St., the buildings get more interesting - fancy movie theaters, little shops, and the gigantic Amoeba Music - a store that sells quite possibly every LP, CD, and DVD ever produced. I spend about an hour exploring Amoeba and buying a few CDs, then continue west along Sunset en route to the Bodhi tree. The walk to the Bodhi tree is about four miles from Amoeba, which I didn't know at the time. I walk west Sunset to Western, then south, crossing Santa Monica, to Melrose, then west for at least two miles, almost turning back several times, until I arrive at the Bodhi Tree. There is probably a lot there that I would be interested in, but I spend most of my time choosing Christmas gifts. It is now dinner time, and my plan is to find a place downtown to eat. That means catching the #10 bus that goes downtown along Melrose Ave. As I walk down Melrose, I encounter some angry cops investigating something or other that force me to cross the street to avoid the commotion. Eventually I see the #10 coming, and I hop on. The bus is standing-room-only for a time, and there is one crazy man aboard who repeats over and over "your pants are down" and "you have red shoes" (not to me in particular). He eventually gets off, and I ride until we reach Hill St. downtown. There I am disappointed to find the city already asleep at 6 pm (Barb later tells me that LA isn't a "night city"). My choice of restaurants is limited to fast food or a few uber-expensive places, and I ultimately settle on IHOP for dinner and ColdStone for ice cream. My stomach filled, I catch a late bus (#446) south to San Pedro, where Barb picks me up about a mile from her house. In my explorations, I missed Barb's potluck with her whale friends at the aquarium, and I missed her second-place entry in the whale-shaped food competition, though I did get some pictures afterward. We crack walnuts and cover them in chocolate for dessert.
December 17: Happy Feet
Barb takes the day off work, and we set off following the Alameda Corridor (major rail line to the Long Beach Harbor) toward downtown. It takes longer than expected, and we are late arriving at the train station where we pick up Tammy. Our first stop is a collection of Mexican shops and restaurants where we have breakfast before unsuccessfully negotiating the cramped wholesale-import district in search of some perfume that Tammy wants for a Christmas gift. From there we head south to Torrance, to Tammy's favorite Thai foot massage place. I am not particularly excited about foot massage, but as it turns out I actually get an hour of foot-leg-hand-arm-back-neck-and-head massage, accompanied with champagne and asian pears. Quite a treat! From there we stop at a brewpub for lunch and beer, then drive through Palos Verdes (pronounced pah-los ver-deez) to Barbara's whale-watching cliffs. The weather has turned rainy, windy, and cold since yesterday, so we don't stay long and we don't see any whales. (This storm, a continuation of the cold storm moving down from Oregon, would bring rare snow to the mountain suburbs and close two of the major freeway passes out of the city.) We enjoy an exquisite dinner at the Copper Room, a fancy restaurant in downtown San Pedro (pronounced san peed-ro). Afterward, we stop in at a coffee shop with live music and play rummy for a while before turning in for the night.
Point Vicente and the lighthouse
Whale-watching pose
December 18: The Evil Dog
Ali once recalled a Craiglist poster begging for a long distance ride-share to save him from the "evil dog" - referring to Greyhound. I would have preferred to take the Sunset Limited to Phoenix, but Michele was not excited about driving an hour at 11 pm to pick me up. So Greyhound it was.
After a quick breakfast, we head north one last time on 14-lane Hwy 110 to downtown, arriving at the Greyhound station with plenty of time to spare. The place is crowded, and emotions are running high due to many weather-related cancellations. Boarding is first-come-first-served, and the earlier departure was canceled for some reason, so I find the line for my bus already a mile long. I ignore the line and sit down to read The Loop. As departure time approaches, they announce that they are splitting us into two buses, and since folks are slow to react I find myself first in line for the new bus. A man stands outside the doorway opening all carry-on baggage looking for knives. As it happens I have a knife with me, but thankfully the mumbling knife-watcher doesn't open that pocket on my bag. On board I initially have a seat to myself but am soon joined by a most interesting man. He talks constantly and is obviously mentally brilliant though also quite ADD. He shares his (rather deep and depressing) poetry and discusses his vision of an anti-gravity device that I can't quite follow. He also answers my questions about natural gas drilling, since he worked in the Wyoming gas fields for several years. He appears to be a lonely man who got lost somewhere along the way and found himself drilling wells despite his aversion to our exploitation of the earth's resources. He has an interesting theory about the role of oil deposits in lubricating plate tectonics, and though I doubt its scientific validity I share his concerns that the earth's oil and gas play some important role in the planetary consciousness that we don't yet understand. Just when I begin to tire of his constant-though-interesting chatter, he gets off to catch a bus up to Victorville, and I have two seats to myself for the rest of the trip. Our driver is an extremely grumpy, chain-smoking man who grunts out announcements when we stop but obviously doesn't enjoy his job. I finish my book and watch the desert landscape roll past through Indio and Blythe, listening to my iPod. The Tolleson bus station turns out to be a street corner with no discernable Greyhound-owned structure on site, but Jerry and Michele find me there without incident, and I settle onto another air mattress in a slightly warmer climate.
December 19: New Tricks for Old Dogs
Our project on this pre-party day is to buy a new receiver, speaker system, and DVD player for my grandparents. It doesn't take us long to set the system up, but teaching the grandfolks to use it proves to be a real challenge. Eventually Chris buys a universal remote so that everything turns on and off with a single button. That helps quite a bit.
December 20: Jerry Turns 80
Jerry actually turned 80 on the 18th, but this is the party. We have almost 150 guests, with all the Michaletz clan, the "California cousins," and many of Jerry's friends from Phoenix and elsewhere. Chris and I are assigned to take photos. The vodka and olive juice flows freely (don't ever ask me to drink a Michaletz martini again!), and soon folks of all ages are busting free on the dance floor, surfing on each other's backs, and twirling long lost second cousins to songs we haven't heard since the 90s.
I hope I'm this happy when I turn 80...though I'm afraid the martinis might have had something to do with it.
Chris and I are Jerry's designated drivers, which means we stay until after 1 am when the party finally winds down to guide a partied-out grandpa into his waiting Lexus.
December 21: The Party Continues
The main events of the day are lunch at Luke Air Force Base, where everyone poses for family photos, and a pizza party in the evening. In between I read The Singing, an addictive fantasy novel that Michele brought along. In the evening I play quite a few games of pool with Timothy, one of my second cousins from San Diego.
Michaletz girls L-R: Amy, Emily, Jane, Carly, Jenna, Laura, Alyssa, Anna, with Sophie in front
December 22: Prescott and Family Christmas
Chris had long planned to use this morning to drive up to Prescott to visit an old friend. I decide to go along to see more of the country and hopefully to hike a bit. I have trouble finding hiking trails close to town, and when we arrive it is cold, windy, and snowing occasionally. I didn't bring my cold-weather clothes, so I content myself with exploring around downtown. Prescott has a brewery, many specialty shops, a few new-age shops, and at least four interesting bookstores. I complete my Christmas shopping and explore along the creek through town, meeting Chris at the brewpub for the return to Phoenix.
Prescott, Arizona
Mural along the creek depicting the town's history
Food, as usual, is the highlight of family Christmas, as we have grilled salmon and halibut caught by the Michaletz men in Alaska last summer. After the meal, we gather around the TV to watch a hospice-produced video starring Cass, which leaves everyone feeling a bit melancholy for the rest of the evening. As often occurs at these gatherings, I end up talking with Anna, one of the more life-questioning and liberal-leaning cousins and therefore one of the more interesting to talk to (a welcome contrast to the grandparents, who lament the coming "culture of death" under Obama!).
December 23: Return to Cold
Perhaps the most interesting part of my flight was having my carry-on inspected by the TSA because my recorder looked like a club of some sort. We had somewhat above-average turbulence, and I started Soulcraft, the book I bought at Breitenbush Hot Springs. Soulcraft is a call to self-awakening through soul discovery in nature that could really change my life if I take it seriously. But somehow I also feel that soul discovery doesn't need to require the agonizing process of ego dissolution that the author describes. We land on time, managing to miss the storms that affected the whole nation a few days earlier. It is snowing lightly as Carol picks us up, and we catch up on "Eli Stone" and "Pushing Daisies" before hitting the sack (a futon this time).
December 24-26: Christmas and Nine Dozen Cookies
With the Celica in questionable condition, Michele and Chris kindly lend me the Matrix, and I arrive at the river house just before Jean. Christmas Eve is a memorable combo of maple-syrup salmon, pebble-selected gift giving, music making, and an evening vigil. The next day Ed and I crack about 140 buartnuts and bake pumpkins in preparation for the annual gifting of the garden. Ed has prepared a booklet describing each batch of fruit leather. From six below on Christmas Eve, the temperature warms into the 30s, and I have a couple of beautiful sunsets in my tree, watching the dance of winter's gold sun on bronzed cedars and drifted fields.
Twenty boxes of fruit leather ready to be "collated" into gift boxes
December 27: Sarah's Wedding
Several members of my high school class are now married, but this is the first wedding I have been invited to. It is a bit sad to watch my once-best-friend tying the knot, but Sarah makes it clear that our friendship will not change, and I am surprised by how much time we had to talk on this celebration day. I am the assigned videographer, which gives me something to do during the sermon. Brittany Pennings and Jessica Hamre sing songs, vows are exchanged, an ornate small circular piece of metal takes up permanent residence on Sarah's fourth finger, and everyone files out to congratulate the newlyweds. I run into Chelsey Huisman, who is both excessively joyful and excessively perfumed, and we try to catch up in five minutes (she is now in grad school in Uppsala, Sweden!) before she leaves with a hug that leaves me smelling like her for the next two hours.
Beth Nere, Sarah, Brittany Pennings
After the meal, the dance lasts for four hours, and I am surprised when the groom disappears to chat with the men, leaving the bride free to dance with me (and others of course). Over the course of four slow dances and in between times, Sarah and I have a chance to update each other on our lives. The dance is a good experience, and I find that I enjoy dancing with former classmates and friends somewhat more than with my extended family in Phoenix (though without the entertainment of watching Tim, Joe, and Jerry bust out their moves).
Sarah!
Bridesmaids (Smith sisters and Beth Nere)
December 28-January 2: Snowy Roads and More Celebrations
On the 29th, Ed and I drove to Willmar to spend time with Jean, and we ate Jean's traditional Christmas stew (wild rice, veggies, and shrimp) that was displaced from Christmas Eve by the salmon this year. The next day, a small amount of snow managed to gum up my trip back to St. Paul. From Renville to Glencoe drifting created near-whiteout conditions. From Glencoe to Chaska the road was ice-glazed. From Chaska to St. Paul the freeway moved at about 5-10 mph, gummed by winter conditions, slow plows, and pre-rush-hour traffic. The journey took four hours instead of the usual 2 1/2. On the 31st, I set off to buy a plant for Michele, some tea for Jake and Carie, and some mead for myself. I got stuck behind two accidents on the freeway, waiting about 20 minutes in traffic. When I got to the nursery, they were closed for New Years Eve. And the liquor store was out of mead. I decided to drive back through Como Park and while there thought I might check to see if I could buy a gift membership to the conservatory. I found no such thing, but the gift shop did sell both orchids and tea (but, unfortunately, no mead). Mission accomplished! Jake and very pregnant Carie (niece-to-be due Feb. 6) came over for a Christmas celebration, and we ate yet more salmon (but much better than mine or the Michaletz' due to Chris's secret grill recipe) and Michele's tasty sweet potato-onion-nut bake. On January 2nd, I helped Chris drill holes in walls and floors and fish wires downstairs via the boiler room, then joined in on the Lightsmith Council potluck.
January 2, 10:15 pm: St. Paul
I have been tracking Amtrak on the internet, and I know that they have been dealing with major delays ever since the big storms on Dec. 20. Engine problems, a stalled freight, two derailments in Montana, and track damage caused by a broken rail all contributed to trains sometimes running 16-24 hours late or canceled. Today the Empire Builder is running about an hour late out of Milwaukee, and Michele and Chris take me to the station at 10:15. After goodbyes, I talk with some of the 28 St. Olaf students en route to Holden Village in the Washington Cascades for a winter retreat/"study abroad." The train arrives 45 minutes late, and it takes awhile to get everyone and their baggage on board the 11 cars.
January 3, 2:00 am: Staples, MN
Michele's melatonin and moon drops fail to induce sleep, especially since the train is full and I can't lay down across two seats like I usually do. My seatmate is a nice fellow named Bob headed for Minot. I drift off to sleep occasionally but mostly lay awake, and I occasionally put on my scanner headphones at station stops to listen to the engineer and conductor. My Coast Starlight car had a slight rhythmic shake at high speeds, but this car is smooth on the welded rail from St. Paul to Fargo. Bob wanders off to the lounge to sleep, giving me a chance to lay down, and I sleep for about an hour.
January 3, 6:00 am: Grand Forks, ND
West of Grand Forks, we travel on rough jointed rail, rocking and rolling along at 70 mph. We are traveling through the last stages of a snowstorm, as this area looks to have gotten 4-8 inches overnight.
January 3, 10:00 am: Minot, ND
Minot is our first long stop/crew change in daylight, and the town is digging out from last night's snow. We have issues with a headlight, and the repair brings us to two hours behind schedule.
January 3, 12:00 pm: Wolf Point, MT
The Great Plains are one grand expanse of drifted white, and as we head west the trackside detectors report ever-lower temperatures despite the bright sun (-11 most of the day, dropping to -15 just before Glacier Park). Cattle, antelope, and abandoned homesteads punctuate the endless white, and when the conductor calls out a slow order (restricted speed) to the engineer, I look out to see the remnants of a mid-December derailment.
Derailed hoppers
Pronghorns!
Montana has had a series of blizzards followed by cold, leaving Hwy 2 coated with ice. We watched cars creeping along at 30-40 mph and passed a few in the ditch, all the while zipping along the rails at 79 mph. Sometimes the train is the right way to travel!
January 3, 4:30 pm: Havre, MT
Sitting in the lounge with my scanner, watching the scenery and reading Soulcraft, I am joined by a 5th grade girl (Winter) and her 4th grade brother (Hayden) heading home to Whitefish, MT. They provide interesting company, especially Winter (Hayden is obsessed with his GameBoy), but they eventually find friends their own age. My next "train buddy" is Marianne, a 7th Day Adventist math major at Walla Walla University with missionary parents and dreams of becoming a missionary herself. We have a rather interesting discussion about evolution (which she believes is real but only acted after God first did the creating). The sun sets just before Havre.
Setting sun from inside our Superliner lounge car
Havre at dusk
January 3, 9:30 pm: Marias Pass, MT
Approaching the pass, the dispatcher warns of poor conditions with heavy drifting. A track inspector truck is stuck in the drifts on one of the main tracks, and we blast through the drifts until we reach recently-plowed track near the summit. Descending the west side, our dynamic brakes don't work, so the engineer is forced to control our speed with the air brakes alone. (Dynamic brakes are equivalent to engine brakes [jake brakes] on a truck - not essential but helpful in minimizing wear on brake pads.) When we reach Whitefish, the crew changes out an MU cable (electrical cable between the engines), which solves that problem.
January 4, 4:00 am: Sandpoint, ID
Many passengers get off in Whitefish, and this night I have two seats on which to lay down. I sleep for 4-5 hours, waking to find us stopped. I turn on the scanner and learn that the dispatcher is struggling with weather-related problems: stuck switches and shorted-out signals that refuse to turn green. So we are forced to pass red signals at reduced speed. I sleep again in the lounge car and wake to find us arriving into Spokane four hours behind schedule.
January 4, 8:00 am: Spokane, WA
Spokane is where the Empire Builder splits into Portland- and Seattle-bound sections, but our train is doing nothing. So I turn on the scanner and learn that two of our engines died, including our lead unit #41 which suffered an air compressor failure rendering it unable to release the train brakes. It takes over an hour to switch out the one remaining good unit, #29, and use that unit to switch the bad engines and the Seattle-bound cars to a different track (where a freight engine will be added to take them to Seattle), and attach the #29 to our train. The crew seems disorganized in the operation, and they have trouble getting the brakes to release on the failed engine and disconnecting the iced-up coupler connecting the two train sections. The BNSF dispatcher is getting frustrated, as he is forced to delay hotshot UPS trains behind us. We finally leave Spokane six hours behind schedule.
Lounge car in Spokane
Looking out the front of the lounge car at engine #29 backing onto our train
Record five-foot snowfall is still piled down the middle of Spokane streets
Spokane Valley. The high bridge carries the BNSF line to Seattle, from which we have just diverged.
More white landscapes - in Washington this time.
January 4, 9:30 am: Richland, WA
Our train seems to have encountered a disturbance in the force, as two more problems arise just out of Spokane. The engine's whistle freezes, emitting only a pitiful whine and forcing our train to slow down to 20 mph for every road crossing. That both adds to our delay and increases our fuel usage speeding up and slowing down, making our engineer worry about having enough fuel to reach Portland. Somebody leaves the water running in the upper level of the lounge car, causing it to rain downstairs in the cafe and blowing the car's electrical circuitry. From that point on the lounge has no heat, ventilation, or working toilets. (The two coaches and sleeping car continued to work.) We arrange for BNSF maintenance to work on our whistle at Pasco, but when we reach Pasco BNSF decides to put a freight engine (with a functional whistle) onto the front of our train.
January 4, 12:00 pm: Pasco, WA
We arrive in Pasco 7 hours behind schedule and leave 8 hours behind, owing to the time required to connect the freight engine and test the connections. Amtrak gives all passengers free Subway lunches owing to the delay and the lack of food on board (we aren't supposed to be on the train at lunchtime). The rest of our journey is beneath overcast skies, but the snow-lined Columbia Gorge is beautiful. With the freight engine up front, we make good time. I find a new train buddy - Andrea - traveling from Missoula to San Francisco. We have a mutual friend at Carleton, and we share similar views of the world. She is a dancer and works part time scheduling activist speakers at universities. We enjoy the scenery together, share contact information, and exchange hugs before we leave the train.
Columbia River, eastern WA/OR
January 4, 5:45 pm: Portland, OR
With no more delays after Pasco, we arrive in Portland Union Staion at 5:45 pm, 7 1/2 hours behind schedule. The Amtrak bus I had tickets for left long ago, but the station soon announces that southbound passengers can board train #507 (Amtrak Cascades) at 6:15. After I check with the baggage desk to ensure that my bags will be transferred, I board the Cascades train - a modern articulated trainset with no gaps between cars. We are delayed to refuel and to wait for the northbound Coast Starlight (running four hours late), but our modest 45-minute delay isn't bad. I am impressed by the speed of this train - traveling at 79 mph between stops, it is almost as fast as driving to Portland and faster during busy periods.
January 4, 8:45 pm: Albany, OR
I arrive in Albany to find that all of my bags made it and nothing froze on the journey. Ebba is waiting with her VW bus. We pick up a hitchhiker headed to Corvallis, drop him off on the north side of town, and arrive home to find supper ready: delicious soup and fresh-baked bread courtesy of Ali.
The next day I wake up at 6:45 am to get to school in time for my first class at 8:00. It takes some time to adjust and catch up on sleep, but I am now back in "school mode." As for the train ride, despite the delays I still prefer the train, and I plan to take it whenever I travel back to Minnesota. I do need to work on finding a more powerful sleep-inducer though.
Next up: schedule time to work in the lab, brew some Arrogant Bastard beer, buy some oyster shells for the chickens, and plan some winter hikes/explorations.